


There's an Endless Sky Out There

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dumbledore Dies, Gen, Introspection, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13087539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: He had to still be there.Somewhere, along that intensely blue sky, Albus had to be there, watching over them. Probably smiling of them.Minerva really wanted to believe it.





	There's an Endless Sky Out There

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Somewhere over the Rainbow, Minerva McGonagall  
> I can't see this side of old Minerva, so I tagged the OOC. But, you never knew. She just might be exactly like this when she doesn't have to put on a face for the sake of Hogwarts.   
> Ah, I don't know.

_[Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high]_

He had to still be there.

Somewhere, along that intensely blue sky, Albus had to be there, watching over them. Probably smiling of them.

Minerva really wanted to believe it.

She had gone to the Astronomy Tower that morning, without an apparent reason. She didn’t go there very often, least of all since...

She refused to finish that thought.

Since the end of the school. Since everybody had gone home, lacking the usual cheerfulness.

Since Dumbledore had also left Hogwarts.

It was September. Little time had passed, _too_ little for memory to start and fade. And yet that morning, a few days from the beginning of the new school year, Minerva had decided she wanted to visit that place. As a reprimand, maybe for respect, or for reasons she was the first not to comprehend.

From the Tower, she could see the whole Hogwarts. She could see the Forest, the Castle, Hagrid’s hut, Herbology’s greenhouses. All they’d ever fought for and for what they would’ve kept on fighting until the walls were standing.

She looked at the sky, again.

It had been raining for a long time during those days, harbingers of an upcoming fall, which would’ve swept away that tiring, endless summer.

It had been raining long. And now, into the blue of the sky, alongside the sun, there was a pale rainbow.

The most beautiful Minerva had ever seen.

 

_[And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true]_

She knew it wouldn’t have been the same. She was not a child, on the contrary: time had made her forget how to be one.

And yet from time to time she would’ve liked to go back, to the innocence of an age where it’s legit to hope for anything, even for the impossible.

Such the return of a friend, by now too far.

Minerva was still waiting for him.

School had started a little more than a month before, and again she felt the urge to go to the Astronomy Tower. Again.

Because, as much as that place could hurt her, it was also the place inside the school which reminded her the best what Hogwarts had been, up until a few months ago.

A place cozy, cheerful, happy. A home, a family.

All because of him.

A rush of wind distracted her from her thoughts, forcing her to turn toward the Forbidden Forest.

She didn’t know why, but somehow it was like it scared her, whilst for all those years she had always considered it a weak pretext to scare the student, devised by Filch.

Now, it was just another piece to that puzzle that represented the unknown, before Minerva’s tired eyes.

She would’ve just wanted to _know._ Understand, at the very least. Comprehend what the right thing to do was.

She would’ve wanted for Dumbledore to stand beside her, to point her the right path to follow.

But that one was a dream she was never going to express, in order to avoid the disappointment of not seeing it come true.

 

_[Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me]_

Minerva tossed and turned in her bed for what she believed was the millionth time.

She couldn’t fall asleep and she just had a vague idea of the cause. She would’ve liked to blame the wind that shook the trees and kept her awake.

And yet, she knew it was just a lie.

 _Too many ghosts in your mind, Minerva_ she told herself, surrendering to insomnia and standing up.

She started walking through the castle, trying to tire herself, when she realized that her steps, almost without her noticing, had brought there back again.

That cursed Astronomy Tower, where it had all ended.

That cursed Astronomy Tower, where the wind blew sharper than anywhere else, seeming to want to take her away, and she shivered thinking that she would’ve willingly let it.

 _Egotist_ she thought of herself for that moment of weakness she wasn’t allowed.

She had stayed for any single student in Hogwarts.

She had stayed for her colleagues, scared as much as her.

She had stayed for that castle, which didn’t deserve to be abandoned.

And she had stayed for Albus, for his memory, for his soul that still was living in that place, untouchable but present altogether.

 _Where are you?_ she asked staring at the sky, almost in tears.

She wouldn’t have gotten her answer but, for once, she allowed herself to close her eyes and imagining how it would’ve been being able to talk to him one more time.

Ask him all those questions she had kept for herself during the years, for a blind and maybe crazy trust in him. Tell him that it was because of him that she had become strong, and thank him, because she had never done it.

When she opened her eyes again she looked at the sky, a blue dangerously close to black, with scarce stars in it.

And to one of them Minerva chose to entrust her thoughts, her desires, her fears. All those doubts and moments of discouragement that didn’t belong to her, and that she didn’t want to carry anymore.

She entrusted them to a star because the morning after, when she would’ve waken up, it would’ve disappeared, alongside her anxiety and her pain.

The wind calmed down, letting the rare clouds thicken, threatening rain. Hiding those few stars.

Minerva sighed.

It was time to reconcile to her rationality.

The world would’ve gone on anyway. She went toward the stairs, allowing herself another glance at that sky.

_Farewell, Albus._


End file.
